Two Miserable Presidents Read Online Free Page B

attacked Lincoln’s idea that the Union could not remain half slave and half free. Why couldn’t it? Douglas demanded.

    â€œLet each state mind its own business and let its neighbors alone! … If we will stand by that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this republic can exist forever divided into free and slave states.”

    Stephen Douglas
    The obvious solution, Douglas argued, was to let voters in the western territories decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery. And everyone else should just butt out.
    This was exactly what Lincoln refused to do. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he was convinced slavery was evil. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he said. And he was not willing to compromise on what he saw as a simple question of right and wrong.

    â€œThat is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong.”

    By the day of the election both men were exhausted. Trying not to get his hopes up, Lincoln kept telling himself he would never win. But his wife disagreed. “Mary insists,” he told a friend, “that I am going to be Senator, and President of the United States, too.” Lincoln laughed at this idea. “Just think of such a sucker as me as president!”
    Well, Abe was right—this time. Douglas won the election in a very close vote. Lincoln said he was too sad to laugh, too old to cry. “I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten.”
    Abraham Lincoln
    The Return of John Brown
    B ut Lincoln was not forgotten. Mostly because the issues he talked about were becoming more and more explosive.
    This was thanks largely to John Brown. Brown somehow made it out of Kansas alive and showed up in New England, where he began raising money for a new plan. Convinced that he had been chosen by God to strike a deadly blow against slavery, Brown now attempted to spark a massive slave rebellion. On the cold, drizzly night of October 16, 1859, Brown marched into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with an “army” of twenty-one men, white and black.
    One of Brown’s soldiers was Dangerfield Newby, a former slave who was hoping to free his wife from slavery in Virginia. In his pocket Newby carried a letter from her:

    â€œDear Husband … There has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, that is to be with you, for if I thought I should never see you, this earth would have no charms for me. Do all you can for me, which I have no doubt you will. I want to see you so much.

    Brown’s small force seized the federal armory—a building full of guns and ammunition. They snatched a few people to hold hostage. (One of the hostages was George Washington’s great-grandnephew.)
Then they waited for slaves to race to Harpers Ferry, take the weapons, and start freeing people all through the South.
    Harriet Newby
    Ever since that night, people have been arguing about whether or not John Brown was insane. One thing we can all agree on: his plan was very bad. Brown brought no food along and had to send out to a nearby hotel for breakfast for his men and hostages. More important, he didn’t arrange any way of letting slaves on nearby farms know what was going on in Harpers Ferry—so how were they supposed to know to join the rebellion?
    The people in Harpers Ferry knew what was going on, of course, and they grabbed their guns and began shooting at Brown’s army. The first of Brown’s men to die was Dangerfield Newby. Within twentyfour hours, a U.S. Army officer named Robert E. Lee led a group of soldiers to Harpers Ferry and attacked Brown’s crew. One of Lee’s men captured Brown after smacking him on the head with a sword.
    Seventeen men lay dead, including ten of Brown’s men (two of the dead were his sons). While